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The Magic Show #222 – Magic Weekend Paris, Part 1
Running time – 9 minutes
Evan Erwin is back with a great new episode of The Magic Show. This week's episode is a very well-edited clip show of answers to questions asked of Magic pros at Magic Weekend: Paris.
Evan asked these pros . . .
- Ben Stark
- Patrick Chapin
- Brian Kibler
- Luis Scott Vargas
- Paul Rietzl
- Zvi Mowshowitz
- Gerard Fabiano
- Conley Woods
- Matt Mar
- Brad Nelson
- Michael Jacob
. . . the following questions:
- What is the best card in Mirrodin Besieged?
- How will Mirrodin Besieged change the Standard metagame?
- Add lots of role-playing cards
- Create a new deck
- Add new solutions in already existing decks
- Add consistency to existing decks
- Help to define a more clear and balanced aggro/control/combo metagame
- What are the pros' thoughts on drafting "backward," meaning drafting the current block with Mirrodin Besieged packs opened first, followed by two packs of Scars of Mirrodin?
- This is what we should have been doing all along
- Rather than considering it drafting "backward," Patrick Chapin feels that for the first time he is drafting "forward."
- Cards in the new set have to be judged on their own merits for the first time, because under the old draft system, by the time a pack from the new set was opened, your deck colors were already established.
- Draft Tips from Mat Marr?
- Infect is a trap. It is not actually good.
- Blue and Red are better than they appear.
- Metalcraft is "tricky."
Questions from the pros are followed by some nail-biting footage of the Player of the Year showdown between Brad Nelson and Guillaume Matignon.
Evan then covers Grand Prix: Paris, which also took place during Magic Weekend, with a whopping attendance of 2,179 players. He asked the pros to weigh in on Wizards of the Coast hosting a Pro Tour and a Grand Prix over the same weekend in one place. Their responses:
- Fantastic. So much Magic being played over the course of the weekend.
- The ability of the pros to move into the Grand Prix if they do not do well enough to make Day 2 of the Pro Tour was economical and very advantageous for everyone involved.
The pros' thoughts on Mirrodin Besieged's sole Planeswalker: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas:
- Tezzeret is very powerful now, but will continue to get more powerful as Standard evolves.
- Tezzeret joins Jace, the Mind Sculptor as one of the premier Planeswalkers of the current metagame.
Cliffhangers! Evan pulls a great stunt at the end of the show with a number of clips with quotes from pros cut off just before they deliver the goods. I suppose we will be tuning in for Magic Weekend: Paris, Part 2!
Magic TV #77 – Magic Weekend: Paris Wrap-Up
Running time – 20 minutes
Luis Scott-Vargas is back to join Tristan and Humphrey after a few weeks traveling both in preparation for and to participate in Magic Weekend: Paris.
To start the discussion, Tristan asks LSV about his thoughts on Magic Weekend: Paris. The first topic covered was one that I've been dying to hear more pros' thoughts on: Should the weekend have been structured in a way to better cater to players who wished to play in both Pro Tour: Paris and Grand Prix: Paris?
It seems that in LSV's opinion, Wizards could barely have realistically structured the events any differently. This is accentuated by the fact that the only way the current structure can really become a problem is if someone makes Top 8 of the Pro Tour and also does well in the Grand Prix (which is exactly what happened to Paul Rietzl).
LSV also speaks about his experience testing for the Pro Tour with a number of other pros at a beach house in San Diego. It might seem that spending a week or two in a beautiful beach setting would not be conducive to getting a lot of work done, but the ChannelFireball crew really proved themselves with six copies of their deck in the Top 16 and Ben Stark piloting the ChannelFireball deck to the Pro Tour: Paris champion title.
A strong argument is made for the high quality of the Caw Blade deck. LSV compares the deck favorably to Faeries and ruminates on the deck's options and power moving forward now that it is a known quantity.
LSV gives his thoughts on Mirrodin Besieged limited, including which deck archetypes have gotten better or worse. I still have not played very much limited with the new set (I've been waiting for the MTGO release), but listening to LSV and other pros talk about it really makes it sound like a lot of fun.
Limited Resources #70 – Back-to-Back-to-Back Crack-a-Pack, Jack!
Running time – 1 hour 25 minutes
This week's episode takes a break from the usual show format of intro-break-main topic in favor of a series of "crack-a-pack" walkthroughs. Following on the heels of the release of Mirrodin Besieged, Marshall and Ryan give us a nice view into their minds as they evaluate the cards in a Pack 1, Pick 1 situation.
Before ripping open a few packs, though, Ryan described to Marshall and the listeners the specifics of a "Bubble League" he and his son Ollie have been playing in with their neighbors. The basic premise is to encourage the fun and challenge of playing Magic in a limited environment without the level of competitiveness in your typical eight-man queue.
The basic premise of Ryan's league is that each player in the league picked a Mirrodin Besieged pre-constructed Intro Pack to build a deck with (you can build with your precon and the pack included with the Intro Pack). In addition to these cards, players in the league may trade with each other, but only with cards already in the league card pool. Once per week or so, each player can open one new pack to add to his or her pool.
I've tried a few variations on this kind of an idea in the past, and it really is a lot of fun. I like that only cards opened in the pool are allowed in. Every league I've played in has just deteriorated into whatever the current best decks in Standard were at the time. With this kind of limitation imposed, I can see things staying fun for a while longer.
On to the crack-a-pack action! Marshall kicks things off with a pack that goes like this.
Crush (Marshall commented that he has found Crush to be better in play than he initially expected)
Fuel for the Cause (This card sparked a great little chat about the quality and usefulness of counter spells in any limited environment. I've never been terribly sure where counters do or should fit in.)
Gore Vassal (Yet another interesting side note about the usefulness of on-board tricks versus tricks played from your hand.)
This was a pretty unexciting pack until the last two cards, really. There are cards to pick in there, but none were very exciting as a first pick. Vedalken Anatomist and Phyrexian Vatmother, in Marshall's and Ryan's minds, were the two clear picks. While Vedalken Anatomist is a very good card in Scars limited, the Phyrexian Vatmother was their first pick in this case.
Coincidentally, this pack provided a nice segue to Ryan's next topic, which was a first pack that Patrick Chapin was faced with at Pro Tour: Paris. Patrick had a pack with the following cards (among others):
This pack was featured in Patrick Chapin's draft deck-tech video with Brian David-Marshall available on the Wizards of the Coast site here. The interesting thing about this pack is that it is filled with cards that are easy to pick first. Check out the deck tech and listen to Marshall's and Ryan's thoughts on the cast. Chapin ended up picking Leonin Relic-Warder, but the Limited Resources crew feels that Phyrexian Vatmother is still the correct pick.
Quickly following Patrick's pick is a topic that I've heard a few people talk about at some length: his willingness to first-pick Ichor Wellspring. I love that card, and I think it is an interesting debate. Sound off in the comments if you have any successes or failures with Ichor Wellspring in the new draft format.
Next up, Ryan opens a pack, and more great pick analysis follows.
Choking Fumes (Very enlightening analysis of this card as a combat trick and the limitations on its uses)
In this pack, the guys pick Inkmoth Nexus, both because it is a money rare in the set and is also a great card for many decks.
To wrap up the show, the guys decide to talk a little bit about print runs in Magic sets and how they impact limited play. As a result of the splitting of the faction cards the way that they are in Mirrodin Besieged, the set could be mapped very quickly and with a high degree of certainty.
Ryan mentions that if you were to memorize the map that has been created for Mirrodin Besieged, there is a very high probability of determining exactly which cards were taken out of the first pack that is passed to you. There is a link in the show notes to the map being discussed, but you will also notice in the comments that while the map is very close, it isn't always 100% accurate. So if you are the type who memorizes stuff like that, keep that in mind.
Yo! MTG Taps! #57 – Three. Dudes. Seriously.
Running time – 1 hour, 10 minutes
Joey and Bigheadjoe kick things off this week by covering the most recent Magic news items, including:
- Grand Prix: Denver and the coverage by GGSlive.
- Joey's photos of the Player of the Year Playoff at Magic Weekend: Paris, which are really fantastic. You can check out Joey's photo series at IWantMyMTG.com.
The Joes take a detour in the middle of discussing news to talk about Wizards of the Coast's Pro Tour coverage. Their thoughts echoed the common sentiment around the Web and sounded similar to what was mentioned last week on Monday Night Magic #246—that sentiment being that WotC has a lot of room for improvement, and everyone would really enjoy better video coverage and coverage in general for Pro Tours.
Moving on to talk about Magic Weekend: Paris, the Joes review the new Standard developments to come out of the tournament, primarily Caw Blade and various Tezzeret lists.
Evan Erwin of StarCityGames.com joins the guys this week to talk a little bit about the Standard metagame after Magic Weekend: Paris heading into Star City Games Open Series: D.C. This is a good listen for a lot of in-depth discussion of the current Standard metagame. They really go over all of the decks in great depth.
Joey Pasco drops a few hints about Mike Flores's new secret project, which at this point is a bit of a mystery (all signs seem to point to this being a new Flores MtG strategy guide, but that could be way off base). I look forward to April, when this project is supposed to be released for the hungry masses.
Joey and Bigheadjoe have a few very kind words about this column. I would like to give a huge thanks to them for the Twitter shout-out! Thanks Joes!
That pretty much wraps up the actual podcast portion of the show, but be sure to tune in to the last fifteen minutes or so for Joey Pasco's interviews with Brian Kibler and Patrick Chapin at Pro Tour: Paris.
Unfortunately, guys, those were the only podcasts I was able to listen to this week. I promise to do better for you all next week. When I'm not listening to Magic podcasts, I'm a CPA in public practice, so right now is an insane time of year for me. We're up to sixty-hour work weeks at this point, so my podcast time is at an all-time low. I am working out the kinks of my listening and writing schedule, and plan to make better use of my time next week.
In the Queue
These are the podcasts that I really regret not having time to listen to this week.
Jon Medina joins KYT, Smi77ty, and ScottyMac to discuss a whole variety of topics. I sampled this episode and really can't wait to finish listening.
The Hardcast #4 – Event Decks and GP Denver News
Tristan and Robert review the week in ChannelFireball.com articles, discuss the results of Grand Prix: Denver, and touch on the new Mirrodin Besieged Event Decks.
Jack, Robert, and Corbin Hosler (of QuietSpeculation.com) talk about Grand Prix: Denver, Extended PTQ season, Star City Games Edmundson, Corbin's latest article on Quiet Speculation, and other topics.
The Third Power #7 – Don't Taze Me, 'Gro
Usman and Anthony address a very tricky topic for cube builders: how to properly support aggro as an archetype.
CommanderCast #14 – Back in the Game
Ah! CommanderCast is back for its new season and I haven't caught up yet? This will have to be remedied immediately.
